jg6 ONE WORLD I TWO WARS

members of the Konoye cabinet last spring who supported the
opening of conversations with the United States in the face of the
opposition of Matsuoka. This is" important.

We understand that Fritz Wiedemann, former German Consul-
General in San Francisco and a confidant of Hitler, is on his way
to Japan. We later learned that Wiedemann will probably go as
Consul-General in Tientsin, where he will supervise the Orient-
gruppe of the German military espionage network, his own specialties
being sabotage and terrorism, for which he has large secret funds.
It is believed that he will direct from Tientsin the espionage-Gestapo
organization in the Far East, having under his orders Meisinger,
now in Shanghai, and Hueber, now in Bangkok. The main objective
of this Orientgruppe is believed to be India and Burma, and it is
intended to act as the advance guard of a Far Eastern pincer move-
ment designed to threatqa India together with the other pincer
represented by the German advance into western Asia. Hitler is
understood to attach great importance to India as the goal of all the
best conquerors since Alexander the Great.

A TOUCH OF WILD WEST IN THE
AMERICAN EMBASSY

October 19, 1941

I put aside this Sunday for a careful review of all material con-
cerning the American-Japanese preliminary conversations since they
commenced last spring, making a written r6sum6 of important points.
A graph of the movements in the progress and regress of the con-
versations would show extraordinary fluctuations. Lately the
movement has been one of regress. I want to have th£ whole story
at my finger-tips in case Togo, the new Minister for Foreign Affairs,
approaches the subject when we meet.

I feel somewhat " wild West" these days, having carried a gun for
the past month or more, especially since the attack on Prince Konoye
on September 18, when four men armed with daggers and short
swords jumped on the running-board of his car as he was leaving
his private residence and tried to get at him. The doors were
fortunately locked, however, and the assassins were quickly over-
powered by the plain-clothes men at the residence. During
September 27, the anniversary of the conclusion of the Tripartite
Pact, I expected anything. Cam Forbes was once on the death list
of one of the so-called patriotic societies when some assassinations
were carried out in 1931 or 1932, but he happened to be away from
Tokyo on that occasion, and I know that my own name is included
on some of their present lists. The guard at the entrance to the
Embassy has been materially strengthened, on the initiative of the
police, and a guard-house erected near the entrance to the chancery,
but it would be a very simple thing for a few dagger wielders to